


the smell of rice

by pechebaie



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: First Kiss, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, atsumu's pov and i keep making him such a softy haha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:40:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26286595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pechebaie/pseuds/pechebaie
Summary: Home was a place that would never love him back. Home was a game, a connection between player and ball and player. Home was a gym floor and an arena that couldn’t care less if you won or lost or hurt yourself so bad you would never return.
Relationships: Kita Shinsuke/Miya Atsumu
Comments: 3
Kudos: 87





	the smell of rice

**Author's Note:**

> i asked for random word prompts on twitter and i had such a fun idea to use the first set for and then i used NONE OF THEM in this. sigh. head in my hands.

The Jackals are taking a break from regular practice, giving their players two whole weeks to rest, spend time with their families (something especially precious for the players from overseas), and just have a well-deserved break in general. It’s Atsumu’s third year with the team, and he’s used to the breaks now, used to actually enjoying his time off from volleyball.

Back in high school, the need to play, to be constantly on the court, holding a ball in his hands, was an itch he could never quite scratch. Even after winning Nationals in his third year, it was never  _ enough _ . Division 1 is different.

Division 1 is different, and so is Atsumu. He knows, now, what it means to take care of yourself, both on and off the court, what it means to feel out your own limits and what it means to push past them, or to leave them the way they are.

The Black Jackals takes three of these extended breaks each year. The first time it had happened, Atsumu had stayed in the little apartment he shares with Bokuto in Osaka and kept going to the gym the team rents out for practice. But Meian had found him less than three days into their mandatory rest period, and the gym staff had been instructed to  _ not _ let Atsumu back in. Atsumu had endured a long talking to from his captain and coach that night.

Nowadays, he travels back to Hyougo to harass his brother and visit his parents, or stays home in his apartment by himself playing video games or reading while Bokuto’s back in Tokyo with Akaashi. But this time-

As the taxi pulls away down the road behind him, Atsumu lifts a hand to shield his face from the sun. Yeah, he’s definitely in the right spot.

It’s so strange to think that Kita has his own place now, away from his granny (even though she apparently lives here more than she stays in her own home). But he needed to be closer to the rice to properly care for it, he’d said, and so here Atsumu is, at the foot of a long dirt driveway leading up to a small house on a hill, overlooking fields upon fields of rice.

He’s never actually been here before, Atsumu realises as he hoists his duffle bag onto his shoulder by the strap and begins trekking up the steep driveway. He’s seen countless pictures, sent from Osamu’s phone, Aran in the groupchat whenever he visits, the single picture of the vegetable garden Kita sent a month after he’d moved in. But seeing the place in person… it’s different. Heavier. Atsumu wonders, about halfway up the driveway, if Kita will appear in the doorway of the house when he reaches the crest of the hill, and if Atsumu’s heart will stop beating in his chest for a whole moment, the way it used to in high school.

But Atsumu reaches the top of the hill, and Kita is not in the doorway. Instead, the front door is wide open, and Atsumu slips off his shoes in the entrance and changes into a pair of house slippers he thinks must be here for Osamu, considering he’s the one who visits Kita the most now.

There’s a piece of paper on the kitchen table telling Atsumu to make himself at home in the guest room down the hall, signed at the bottom ‘Kita Shinsuke’ in neat kanji.

The guest room is behind a wooden door, white paint peeling. Inside, there’s a double bed that looks like it’s never once been slept in, a nightstand, a dresser, a full-length mirror, and a small bookshelf. Atsumu takes in the room, the smell of the fields drifting in through the open window, the way he looks staring back at himself in the mirror.

It’s a lonely room, he thinks, but something about it feels like home.

Atsumu doesn’t unpack, just dumps his duffel bag on the bed unceremoniously. He leans out the window, bracing himself on the ledge, and lets the smells from outside wash over him. Flowers, grass, the vaguely sour-sweet smell of fruit from Kita’s lone tree, fallen and rotting, water. Rice.

It’s strange to think that growing rice has a smell, but Atsumu supposes it isn’t all that surprising. Everything does have a smell, after all, no matter how slight or indistinguishable from everything else.

He lifts a hand to his forehead, squints, tries to see if he can spot Kita out in the fields, but there’s nothing but grass and paddies filled with stalks of rice. It’s mid-August; Atsumu knows from the past few years of Kita’s group chat messages that it’s almost harvest season, so the rice must be nearly ready by now. Perhaps Kita’s already harvesting and just didn’t mention it over the phone when Atsumu asked if he could visit for a few weeks.

Atsumu stands at the window watching the fields, the wind painting waves in the rice stalks as it blows, for another moment before he moves his bag to the floor and flops down on the bed, kicks his slippers off. It’s not like Osaka to Hyougo is a long trip, but he’s tired all the same from the past couple of weeks of training, so he lets himself indulge in a nap.

When he wakes up, the room is awash in golds and oranges and violets, the sun kissing the horizon, its fiery body sinking into an embrace with the rice out the window. As Atsumu blinks in the warm light, he becomes aware of the sounds of metal, chopping, sizzling, all drifting in through the gap between the door and the floor.

Kita must be making dinner.

Atsumu sits up and stretches, shirt falling back in place over his stomach. He slept for a lot longer than he expected, so he’ll probably have trouble falling asleep tonight, but it’s okay. He’s okay with that, because it means he gets to pad into the kitchen in socked feet and see Kita, gentle washed out colours painting his skin from the open window. He  _ is _ cooking, something in a pan that sizzles a lot, and the rice cooker is steaming a bit, and the kitchen is filled with warm smells, and in his half-asleep daze, Atsumu thinks Kita looks almost like he were made of gold: the dusk sunlight kissing his skin, his hair; the way he flips whatever is in the pan with such ease, as though he were made just for that action alone; his peach-coloured shirt, undoubtedly buttoned all the way up to the collar, hugging his shoulders, his back.

Atsumu does not believe in gods, but in this moment, there isn’t a sliver of himself that doubts that Kita was hand-carved by one.

The moment is broken when Atsumu, always a little sensitive to pollen, sneezes, and Kita glances over his shoulder, smiles, then looks back at the stove.

“Did ya have a nice trip over?” Kita asks.

“It was barely a thirty-minute drive,” Atsumu says. It’s almost like it hasn’t been months and months. Atsumu fights the urge to step up behind Kita, to wrap his arms around his waist and rest his face in his hair.

“Ya were asleep when I came in; figured ya must’ve been tired from  _ somethin _ ’,” Kita says.

Atsumu shrugs even though he knows Kita won’t see it. “Not a lot of time to sleep with practice,” he says.

Kita hums. “Is that ‘cus they’re workin’ ya to the bone, or ‘cus ya spend every night out with yer teammates?” When Atsumu - guiltily - doesn’t respond, Kita looks over his shoulder again and smiles. “I’m only kiddin’,” he says. “Yer an adult, Atsumu; I know ya can take care of yerself.”

Kita finishes dinner and they eat at the kitchen table. Vegetable stir fry, which has never been Atsumu’s favourite, but he thinks anything Kita makes always tastes like heaven, so Atsumu finds himself sinking into the warm vegetables and rice like a drowning man finally surfacing for air.

While they eat, Kita tells Atsumu what he’s missed of granny, and things about Miya Onigiri that Osamu had neglected to say in the groupchat, and how the rice is doing. Something funny that happened when Aran and Akagi visited the month prior. About the old dog that lives three miles down the road. Atsumu listens, nods and makes necessary acknowledgements between bites. And when he finishes, he goes for seconds, because Miya Atsumu is a creature that has never known the comforts of fullness.

They do the dishes together, side-by-side, because Atsumu insists on helping. Kita washes - water, soap, water - and Atsumu dries - towel and then into the dishrack. It feels good to do something like this, and probably looks like something disgustingly domestic that Atsumu can imagine his brother doing with Suna whenever he visits from Hiroshima.

Miya Atsumu and Kita Shinsuke - Kita Shinsuke and Miya Atsumu. They haven’t seen each other since Atsumu was in Hyougo the year before to visit his parents for a few days in November. They’d run into each other outside the gates of Inarizaki - Atsumu, for nostalgia’s sake, and Kita on his way to pick up groceries.

It hadn’t been much - Atsumu had ended up accompanying Kita for groceries, and then he’d gone back to his parents’ house, buried his face in his pillow, and screamed.

Miya Atsumu, twenty-three going on twenty-four, number thirteen and starting setter for MSBY Black Jackals, contender for Japan’s men’s volleyball team for the 2020 Olympics, has never had his first kiss, because he declined to kiss or seriously date anyone in high school because he was waiting for his captain to look his way. Now he is an adult, with too much on his plate and too much time spent travelling for matches to settle down with someone. (Not that he hasn’t  _ tried _ , but people seem to have this idea of him in their heads that he just can’t measure up to in reality. Men his age aren’t looking for someone inexperienced.)

But here, in this quiet kitchen, a gentle breeze pushing at their backs from the open window, the golds and pinks of dusk now faded to the bruising indigos of twilight, Atsumu lets himself imagine, for just tonight, that he is standing here in this kitchen washing dishes because he loves Kita, and because Kita loves him back.

They watch a movie on the couch, and Atsumu, somehow already tired again, almost falls asleep on Kita’s shoulder. The characters on-screen are having an argument in a thunderstorm, and Atsumu lets his eyelids flutter closed.

There’s a gentle, warm, breathy laugh from Kita, and he moves his arm to rest along the back on Atsumu’s neck, his hand squeezing Atsumu’s shoulder once before relaxing.

It is quiet in Kita’s home, far quieter than the apartment in Osaka, with the cars outside, the neighbour down the hall blasting music, Bokuto on FaceTime with his partner in Tokyo. But Atsumu can hear his heartbeat thrumming in his ears louder than any highway.

“Kita-san,” he says, because he’s sleepy, he’s warm, he’s maybe lost just a little bit of his sense of self-preservation. He’s eaten a good meal. He feels taken care of. “Kita-san.”

Kita stiffens, infinitesimally, but does not remove his arm.

“Atsumu?”

“Kita-san,” Atsumu says again, a third time, a name breathed against its owner’s neck like a prayer. “Sorry,” he says. “I really like you. Sorry.”

Kita doesn’t move. Atsumu holds his breath. Maybe he didn’t say anything. Maybe he only imagined it.

“I know,” says Kita after what feels like an eternity. “Don’t apologise.”

“You know?” Atsumu doesn’t move, doesn’t sit up. Kita’s arm is still around his shoulders, solid, grounding, and his face is still pressed right up against Kita’s neck.

“Yeah,” says Kita, “I know.”

Atsumu tilts his head and Kita looks back at him. The movie plays on in the background, but Atsumu can’t hear it anymore. He blinks, and the sound rings in his ears.

“You know.” He could count Kita’s eyelashes if he tried.

For a moment, Kita looks back at him, face soft, before he says, “I’m gonna kiss ya, if that’s okay with-”

But Atsumu is already there, not waiting, not meeting halfway, just sitting up and pressing his face up the last handful of centimetres to steal Kita’s words mid-sentence, sealing their lips together like a promise.

Outside, the sun has long since set, but here, in the dark living room, their bodies lit only by the flickering light of the television set, Atsumu feels its heat expanding in his chest. The gentle, hot slide of Kita’s mouth against his own, Kita’s calloused hands on his face, curled around his shoulder, Atsumu’s own hands threading fingers through Kita’s hair.

Home was a place that would never love him back. Home was a game, a connection between player and ball and player. Home was a gym floor and an arena that couldn’t care less if you won or lost or hurt yourself so bad you would never return.

But this - kissing Kita - this, Atsumu thinks, is what “home” was meant to mean all along.  


**Author's Note:**

> atsumu becomes such a SOFTY when i write him HELP. well they say to write the kinda thing you want to read i guess
> 
> i am on Twitter [here](https://twitter.com/pechebaie) where i almost entirely RT haikyuu stuff and post haikyuu art


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